


Break Open the Sky

by allthemeadowswide



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Afterlife, F/M, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthemeadowswide/pseuds/allthemeadowswide
Summary: Marlowe gets a second chance.





	Break Open the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank-you to [Sara](http://trash-god.tumblr.com) for taking the time to beta-read the prologue for me, and to Cello for something small I borrowed from [She Was Sleeping](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314961/chapters/16614268) and all of the Marlowe headcanons lovingly committed to memory from RP and energetic Discord chats. ♥
> 
> Behold: a fix-it 'fic! But it's not the usual kind.
> 
> Feedback would be much appreciated if you have the time and inclination. Thank you for your support!

 

* * *

 “We are not trapped or locked up in these bones.  
No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us.  
And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”   
― Walter Mosley, _Blue Light_

* * *

  
It hurts to breathe, to move, even to think, but they all surge forward as one, roaring skies beneath their feet and fog before their eyes; they are water rushing wildly toward the unknown. Rocks shatter against the ranks, unhorsing their commanding officer and killing twenty others, but the river of recruits continues forward, urged on by one young man’s trembling shouts and the knowledge that this is how things will end for them.

Death, when it comes, is violent. A few stare it in the face and think of their old lives, of people they will never see again, of things left unfinished, but it rains down upon them just the same as it does the cowards, rendering flesh and separating souls.

* * *

  
When Marlowe Freudenberg died, he was a mere two months shy of his nineteenth birthday. Young, for a human. All of the information was in his file: a thin, sad little thing. In his younger years he had been a curious child, the type who asked too many questions and frustrated his busy parents. As he grew, he worked hard and always tried to be responsible. The usual deterrents failed to attract him; he was not easily overcome by greed, lust, or vanity, as so many of his peers were. His final moments were spent frightened, something he had in common with the others who died alongside him, but he had tried to hide his fear lest it affect the mission. Still, the corpse bore tracks on its face, marked in dust so thick they could be nothing but tears.

Marlowe had been a promising person, it looked like. Admirable, even, in that way humans sometimes managed to be.

A shame, wasn’t it, for someone like that to die so young…

And for what? A mistake? A small error in judgment?

It wasn’t fair.

Not that life was usually fair, __per se__ , but there was a certain level of it one might expect in life—a certain amount they were __owed__ —and that, pathetic little bit that it was, was not it.

That was probably why his case had been flagged.

Luckily for Marlowe, such mistakes of the universe were…reasonably easy to fix.

* * *

  
It didn’t feel like waking up, but Marlowe was not in possession of a better word to describe the experience. He opened his eyes and he was simply __there__. Everything was grey and green and gold. It stirred something in him that he couldn’t quite place. A connection, maybe; a sense of self.

His memories came back to him in rivulets, one memory after another trickling through him until he felt whole again.

“I’m dead,” came his voice when he felt certain that was the case. It no longer hurt to speak. Nothing did, actually. Odd. Or perhaps not, considering his fate.

Fog curled around the edges of the area he was in—he could hardly call it a room. He dropped his eyes fell to the ground and saw that his feet were bare and beneath them a lush, thick grass; the blades tickled slightly when he shifted his weight.

His gaze caught the edge of his hand and reminded him of his arm. His left hand reached for it and found it, squeezing experimentally. Fully intact and capable of feeling. He blinked and opened one eye at a time: he had vision in both.

He had to be dead. Nobody could have lived through the battle.

And he remembered every second of it: the charge into nothingness, hot air burning his face and body, his horse howling in pain as they both went down. He hit the ground, one of his feet stuck in the stirrup, and landed in the rocks that had dismounted him—face up, the sun in his eyes. A shiver worked its way down his spine at the memory and he shifted again, a step forward, the soft coolness of the grass oddly comforting.

“It passed quickly,” said a voice, “for a human.”

Marlowe whirled around and came face to face with an animal he had never seen before: it was some kind of large tabby cat with rounded ears, each paw as big as his face, green and gold and grey like the world they were in.

He could only stare.

“Don’t you think?” The words were accompanied by a tilt of the head. The sound had to be coming from this creature? Being? Animals did not talk, so reason dictated the latter was in effect.

“Uh,” he managed to say after a moment, “I don’t remember. Perhaps…a few minutes.”

The cat’s mouth opened slightly before they spoke again: “Would you like to experience it once more?”

“Huh?”

“Your death. I can show it to you. I can even take you there.”

“Am I dreaming?” he muttered under his breath, turning his head to see trees in the fog; their branches drooped low in places and clawed at the sky in others. “This must be a dream.” But it didn’t feel like one; the air was cool and slightly damp, the light like an early dawn, the shadows realistic as they fell on the grass.

“This is no dream,” they said, sitting back on their haunches just a few feet away. “You died. Look at me. I’ll take you there.”

He didn’t feel especially compelled to look, but it wouldn’t hurt even if it was a dream. The large cat blinked its soft, shimmering eyes, and Marlowe found himself following suit. Abruptly, he was on the battlefield again, barefoot and gearless. He could feel the muscles in his back grow tense.

“Do not worry,” his companion said gently, their voice almost soothing. “You are safe with me.”

Marlowe looked out to the horizon, first, to the walls and the world that perhaps existed outside of them. A commotion was going on in the distance, movement that looked like the three-dimensional maneuvering gear. Perhaps Captain Levi was fighting the Beast. A part of him hoped so. It would mean he hadn’t died for nothing.

Another battle was in progress in the almost opposite direction, but further away. The South 104th team, he supposed.

Finally, he lowered his gaze to the field at his feet and found himself.

Death littered the expanse before him; the soil was soaked red-brown, the sparse tufts of grass speckled. Limbs and chunks of flesh lay yards from their corresponding bodies. The horses were dead or dying, limbs kicking weakly in the throes of death, the sounds they made primal.

A horrible shiver worked its way down his spine as he recoiled from it all, even his own body.

“Not the best way to go,” the cat told him, a hint of humor in its voice. “That would be…while you rest, yes? But I assure you, it is not the worst, either.”

Part of his face was missing. One eye seemed loose, as if the slightest breeze might knock it out of what remained of his socket. His other eye was still wide open. Marlowe followed its empty gaze and saw the sun, still at the top of the sky. He hadn’t been able to look away; he hadn’t been able to move at all.

When he looked down again, he noticed the dust; it turned his hair grey and stuck to his open wounds.

“I’m dead,” he said, almost in disbelief, though this time there was a bit of understanding in his words. Faced with this, it wasn’t difficult to accept.

“You said that already, but your kind often do. Why is that?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Death comes for everyone, eventually. How is it that your kind know this and yet feel surprised when it does?”

Marlowe definitely didn’t have an answer for that. It was some kind of a feeling, maybe the unexpectedness of it all. He couldn’t have been dead even an hour, yet, and he was already looking down at his own corpse. “We think of it as a slow process,” he tried, “but as it turns out, it’s a very quick one at the end.”

The being nodded once, slowly, and fell silent.

“Are they all dead?” he asked after a moment, looking out over the rest of the open field. It did not seem a situation anyone could have survived, not for long. The dirt and grit would get into a living person’s wounds just as well as a dead one’s.

“All but two.” The cat inclined their head.

Marlowe looked closer, gaze sweeping back and forth, and after a little while, he saw it: one lone soldier stumbling through the mess. He knew them, at least a little. He stared until the name came to him: Floch. Another transfer. The younger soldier had openly wept for his life and let the horses go, but when the time came to charge into hell, he had been right beside Marlowe. At least someone had made it out. Someone like him.

“Who else?” he asked. “Who else survived this?”

“I apologize… That is not something you are allowed to know.”

He supposed it would be useless to argue with that; and it wouldn’t matter, anyway, if he was dead. “Where are the others? The other dead soldiers.”

“They are waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you, of course. You are my case.”

“Case?”

“Indeed. I know everything about you.”

“What sorts of things?”

The cat caught his eyes and blinked at him, long and slow, and when Marlowe followed suit they were both in the fog again.

“You are Marlowe Freudenberg. You didn’t live to see your nineteenth birthday. You have missed your grandfather since you were ten. You adore your sister but don’t much care for your parents or your brother. You also ask far too many questions, just as your file said.” Almost as if anticipating that this information was too vague, they opened their mouth to reveal two long, sharp teeth; he supposed it was a smile. “Your last living thought was of someone named Hitch. You left her behind, but not your care for her. Do you want the memory again?”

“No,” he said faster than he meant to. “I remember.”

He’d thought of her in her bed, hair mussed up a little, sun filtering in through her dusty window. It was a good memory to fall back on, even if her dusty window bothered him on some level even now.

“She was sleeping,” he said aloud.

The cat rose up, walking slowly toward Marlowe. “No,” they said. “That was a fiction based on a memory that you created to comfort yourself in your dying moments. She was safe, then, but she wasn’t sleeping.”

“Her safety is what matters the most,” came his response, but he was already seeing the truth flickering just beneath his eyelids. When he closed his eyes the image solidified: Hitch, half-dressed for duty, chin in her hand as she stared out of her barracks room window. There were dark circles under her eyes, but what bothered him the most about the vision—if he could call it that—was that she wasn’t moving. Hitch was always animated, no matter her mood.

“I’ve never seen her like that,” he said, almost to himself. He couldn’t help but feel it was the truth. After titans, a giant talking cat capable of projecting images into his mind wasn’t really so odd, was it? And besides, he was dead. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because you care,” said the cat, “and I am allowed to show you. She’s still there, you know. Waiting for you to return. Would you like to? Return to her?”

Marlowe shook his head, feeling more than a little overwhelmed. There just weren’t enough questions he could ask to fully grasp the situation. He settled for, “What are you talking about?” and, “Who are you?”

“Me?” They looked taken aback, surprised.

“Are you an angel? A demon? Some kind of… _ _something__?” Marlowe had never been sure of where he stood when it came to the afterlife; he almost regretted that. Maybe this was something he was supposed to know.

The cat managed to look thoughtful, large head tipping to one side. “You could say I’m your caseworker, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I—I mean…what—” Frustration welled up inside of him, making his words sound sharper than he meant them. “What am I doing here?”

“You died. It’s all right. Many people need to be told more than twice.”

“What do __you__  do?”

“Review your case.”

“To decide…what happens to me?”

“Precisely! Or, perhaps more accurately, I am here to intervene on your behalf. The others are waiting, as I said, for you.”

“On me.” He couldn’t begin to fathom what that meant, except that their fate was somehow tied to his own. That didn’t seem very fair.

“You are…more difficult.”

“I don’t understand.” He knew he was making a stupid face, lips drawn tight, eyebrows low, but it just didn’t make any sense. Nothing did, here. Wherever he was. “Why are you a giant cat?”

There was an aloof flick of the tail, and the cat in question lifted its chin. “You don’t like this form?”

“I’ve never seen a cat like you.”

“Hm.”

They blinked again, Marlowe following suit, and the cat was a doe, green and gold and grey.

“How do you find this form?” they asked.

“Recognizable.” He didn’t feel anything but mild surprise at the shift. Odd. “You’re a deer.”

“Ah, so you can put a name to it. I see.” The cat returned in another blink, mouth open in what was probably a laugh. “This form is called ‘tiger.’ I hadn’t thought to check your file, but I see now that you’ve never seen one.”

“...No.”

“Well, that’s all right. Now you know. Let’s get down to business.”

“Business?”

“You.”

“Me? What about me?”

“You died.”

“We’ve established that.” He could feel the frustration building up again; he had never cared for stalling, and that was what this felt like. There was a reason for this, for everything, and it was all information that, for some reason, was being belatedly relayed to him.

Tiger flicked their tail. “Yes. A waste of a good life, according to your file. It was flagged when it came through; that’s how I got it.”

“Flagged?”

“It means…marked as important, different.”

“I meant…why? Why was I flagged? Why not any of the others?” Or had they been? Perhaps not, if they were waiting on him. Whatever the reason for that was.

“Because your death was a waste. It doesn’t happen often, I assure you. A slight…glitch in the system, if you will. I know your kind have a phrase you’re fond of: __you’re lucky__ , but it’s not really applicable here. Your death was a waste because you ensured it.”

"What?” Familiar threads of irritation began to work their way through his veins; perhaps he had died for very little, but his whole life a waste? He hardly thought—

“Peace, Marlowe. It is not an insult. It is fact. I’ve seen your file, and I know everything about you, remember? You don’t understand nuance very well, sometimes. Your Hitch could teach you that, if you like. What I am trying to make clear to you is that your life was not a waste; your death was. Therein lies the difference. Your death was waste of a good life.”

He unclenched his fingers, shoulders slumping slightly. That made a little more sense. “My apologies, Tiger.”

“Humans,” they said, fur rippling slightly in something that Marlowe thought looked like amusement, “you name everything. Thank you.”

“I didn’t know what else to call you.”

“Tiger is…delightful. I am honored by it. Now, Marlowe, you are in, as they say, luck. You get a second chance.”

“A what?”

“A second chance,” Tiger said, speaking more slowly this time.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you get…a second chance.”

It took every ounce of willpower in Marlowe’s body to keep from groaning with frustration, but it was understandable that here, he might need to be more specific. Tiger obviously did not converse regularly at length with other people. Or he was being teased, but he had gotten better at dealing with Hitch’s little jokes, and this would be no harder to deal with than that. “What does a second chance entail, exactly?” __Besides a second chance__ , he didn’t add, though the thought lingered at the edge of his mind, properly sarcastic. Hitch’s influence, no doubt.

“It means you get to start over.”

“My…life?”

“Now you understand.” Tiger grinned again, teeth glimmering.

“From the beginning?”

“That sounds tedious, doesn’t it? To be most accurate, it is from a point in your life that you choose.”

“Are you sure this isn’t some kind of…dream? Nightmare?”

“My apologies, but you are dead. You saw for yourself. You know the truth.”

He did, but it still felt surreal. Wasn’t it one chance and that was it? “I need to pick a point in my life to go back to?”

“That’s right…but there are some caveats. I believe you might call them ‘terms and conditions’ or ‘rules.’ They’re very important, in your case.”

“All right… What are they?”

Tiger sat down again, head lifted high as if proud to be able to recite. “The first thing you should know…is that this is optional. Not many opt out but you may do so, if you like.”

It was almost a relief. Marlowe nodded, expression serious. It was better to be safe than sorry. The situation he was in didn’t exactly feel fake, not in the usual ways; it lacked the vagueness his dreams usually did. Plus, he had always tried to keep an open mind; listening seemed to be the smartest thing he could do. Nobody could accuse him of being lax—in life or death.

“I’d like to hear the other terms, then,” he said, and added, almost as an afterthought, “please.”

“Very well. It’s simple, really. You will pick a point in your life to go back to. Any point. Conception. Infancy. Any day, any event, any year that you were alive by even the smallest amount. For example… You can see your beloved grandfather again. He gave you the watch, didn’t he? The one that was in your pocket?”

Opi… How he’d missed him, longed for his advice and the sound of his voice and the way it felt to be with him—a feeling he had never been able to put into words, even for his own private memories, and a feeling he had never felt around anyone else.

The lack of it gripped him now, made his chest ache slightly. “Yes,” he made himself say, fingers reaching into his pockets only to find them empty.

Of course. The afterlife. Everyone knew you couldn’t take your treasures with you, even one as small as a pocketwatch.

Tiger nodded. “You can see him alive again, just the way you remember him… But with time your memories of this place will fade, and what will change, then, if you go back to that time? Will reliving the years you’ve already lived impact your future? Will you, or will you not, tread the same path you’ve already walked—the one that led you here too early?”

Marlowe could only nod, the knowledge and weight of what he could do with this gift settling around his shoulders like a shroud. He shook off memories of his grandfather in his large, soft armchair, book in his lap, children at his feet in front of a roaring fire. “I see,” he said. “The point is to change something.” And he wouldn’t be able to bring about an effective change to his life if he went back too far, to those evenings listening to his grandfather’s low voice and the sound of pages turning. No matter how much he longed to have it again, he had lived it once. That had to be enough. “It makes sense.”

“If there is a point, it is to die with no regrets, without having wasted a moment of the life given you. What are your regrets, Marlowe Freudenberg? What wrongs can you right with another chance at life?”

By some miracle of the afterlife, Marlowe managed not to do so much as blink. “Is the answer in my file?”

Tiger’s grin was wider this time, and came with an audible rumbling. Maybe it was laughter. “Of course, but this is for you to decide. You must choose carefully. Your second chance means your first ceases to exist. You will remember some of it when you arrive, but as I explained to you a moment ago: as time passes your knowledge of your original chance will fade.”

His forehead wrinkled in thought. “You said earlier that going back too early could cause me to repeat the same mistakes, is that correct?”

“It seems to be a common thread among people who choose too early a point in their lives. But I must caution you against choosing the opposite also.”

That, too, made sense. Choose a point too close to your own death and you might not be capable of preventing it. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“Only that you need to make your choice quickly. I apologize for the pressure, but you __are__  keeping a lot of souls waiting.”

Marlowe had never experienced this kind of pressure; his choices were always things he was able to build up to, like joining the military or joining the Military Police. The lines in his forehead deepened slightly as he crossed his arms.

All right, so he had to pick a point in time, just one. It couldn’t be too far in the past or he would forget how to change his future; it couldn’t be too close to his death or he might fail to prevent it. It needed to be a perfect choice, one that would let him right as many wrongs as possible, one that would give him time to clear his own path and heal regrets.

What did he need to do?

Tiger was suddenly no longer a large cat, but a small bird with keen eyes. “I will fly to that post and back,” they said, beak pointing into the distance where a single lamppost glowed in the fog. “When I return, you must have your decision.”

“Uh—yes,” Marlowe said, and struggled to organize his turbulent thoughts. What did he need to make right first? He would need to write to his sister, he supposed. Something more thoughtful. His last letter to her had been sincere, but far too short. If it ended up being his last again, he ought to give her something more meaningful. And __Hitch__ —

His last living thought had been her.

At a time like that…riding hard straight toward his doom...he had thought of her… It seemed inappropriate somehow. But Tiger had explained it well enough, hadn’t they? His last thought had been of her safety. A large part of him had wanted her to come with him to the Survey Corps. They worked so well together, after all. But she hadn’t joined him. In fact, she had berated him for bothering with it. At the time, it hurt almost desperately, but in his final moments, he had been glad for it: glad for the fight, because it had spared her.

But he still regretted his harsh words.

And her tears.

Tiger landed with a rush of air on a low branch above him, feathers settling just so before they morphed into a tiger again. “You’re ready,” they said, a knowingness in their voice.

“Yes.” He almost saluted, but held his arms tight around him, almost protectively. How silly, he thought; he was already dead.

“Think about it carefully,” Tiger said, lounging in the branches above him. “Remember the time, the place, the day; whatever focus you require. You needn’t tell me. You only have to close your eyes and put yourself there…and you will go.”

So Marlowe closed his eyes and remembered:

The way the sheets felt against his skin and the angle the light came in through the windows; the sound of soldiers grousing about the hour, knuckles rapping on doors in petty revenge as they made their way toward the mess hall; the smell of eggs, still faint, in the air; his name on the schedule.

He stirred, drowsiness sliding away as if he had been in a dream.

* * *

  
And when he opened his eyes…he was there.


End file.
